Google Has 5 Weeks to Remove Nasty Comments

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A London court ruled that once a complaint has been made, Google has five weeks to remove a libelous comment or face a lawsuit.

The ruling was made about Google's Blogger platform and overturns a decision made by last year, according to The Guardian. The case was about Payam Tamiz, a former political candidate and law student who failed last year to sue Google over comments made about him being an alleged drug dealer and thief on the London Muslim blog which was created on the Blogger platform. He complained about the comments but said Google didn't promptly remove them.

It's being considered a landmark case because it's the first time a court has made Google liable for defamation for a blog on its blogging platform and has no other tie to the tech titan.

Ian de Freitas, an attorney with Berwin Leighton Paisner, said the ruling was a disappointment. "It is a blow to the technology platform providers because the court of appeal decided that Google is arguably responsible for the postings by the blogger once they have been notified of them and have failed to take them down," he told the Guardian.

The ruling, although in England, could be showing Google and the world that its privacy policies are coming under legal scrutiny -- and it's not ruling to the search titan's benefit.